Monthly Archives: July 2023

Edinburgh Book Festival welcomes word-lovers

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Edinburgh Book Festival. Shows people in a park enjoying the literary festivalThis year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival is on from 12th-28th August 2023, celebrating the joy of words with more than 550 world-class luminaries from 50 countries contributing to over 500 events.

The programme builds on the ultra-accesible hybrid format developed over the past two years, with live, in-person events, many of which are also available to stream or watch at a later date. Expect a celebration of the imagination, ideas and issues at the heart of books and stories, offering new perspectives on the world around us.

Authors taking part this year include Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong, Outlander writer Diana Gabaldon, plus Noam Chomsky, Jack Monroe, Alexander McCall Smith, Denise Mina, William Dalrymple and Armando Iannucci. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon steps up  for two events, interviewing novelist Louise Welsh about her new novel The Second Cut, and  Marjorie Lotfi and Claire Urquhart from the charity Open Book. There are also events with some of the world’s most beloved children’s authors, including author/illustrator and environmentalist Yuval Zimmer, Cressida Cowell, Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Skye McKenna, author of the HEDGEWITCH series, plus doctor turned writer and doctor-turned comedian and author Adam Kay.

The festival’s director Nick Barley says: “The world has changed immeasurably since 2019: we’re learning to live with the effects of the pandemic and war in Europe – but we’re also beginning to imagine what a better future should look like. Exploring these issues in inspiring conversations with scientists, historians, poets and novelists is exactly where the Book Festival comes into its own. I’m thrilled that thanks to Baillie Gifford, every young person coming to a Schools event gets a free ticket and a free book this year. With all online events and a selection of our in-person theatre tickets also available on a Pay What You Can basis, we’re doing everything we can to make the festival accessible to everyone.”

Find full details of the Edinburgh International Book Festival programme.

Got an event, challenge, competition, opportunity or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) iCloud (dot) com.

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Writing prompt – bums

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Beatlebums. Photo by Judy Darley

The fourth and final of July’s Plymouth Prompts offer you the chance to enjoy the best seat in Plymouth.

In fact, there are four exceptional seats here, as part of the sculpture Beatlebums. These galvanised steel and copper patches on the lawn of Plymouth Hoe Park commemorate a moment in 1967 when Beatles John, Paul, George and Ringo sat down to enjoy a view over Plymouth Sound.

The first time I strolled past, I confess, I failed to notice the famous bum-prints. The second time, I couldn’t resist sitting where Lennon’s buttocks had been.

It brought to mind the idea of someone walking over your grave. Could this sculpture create a link between the Beatles (living and deceased) and their fans? It feels like the start of a psychedelic time slip tale.

Discover more about the Beatlebums installation here.

Plymouth Prompts: Island.

Plymouth Prompts: Survivor.

Plymouth Prompts: Figurehead.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Submit your novel for the Virginia Prize For Fiction

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Virginaia-woolfs-house-richmond-hogarth-press-begun-hereBlue PlaqueThe Virginia Prize for Fiction is open for submissions. Run by Aurora Metro, the Twickenham-based arts organisation, the competition is searching for the best new fiction by a woman writing in English. Finalists will receive editorial guidance and a conditional publishing deal from Aurora Metro Books with an advance and royalty payable for the publishing rights.

The deadline for standard entries is 1st August 2023, and costs £20.

The closing date for late entries is 31st October 3023 and costs £25.

The prize is open to any woman (over 18) around the world, writing in English. Your entry must be a completed, unpublished novels for adults or YA readers, of at least 45,000 words in length.

Longlisted writers will be contacted in January 2024. A special event to announce the finalists will be held in London.

The novel can be of any genre but cannot have been published or self-published before.

This biennial prize was launched in 2009 as a tribute to Virginia Woolf who wrote her first novel, The Voyage Out, while living an Hogarth House on Paradise Road in Richmond, where she and her husband Leonard also founded the Hogarth Press in 1917.

The prize’s founder, publisher Cheryl Robson, hopes that “by naming this prize in Virginia Woolf’s memory we will inspire women to find their voice and contribute to the pantheon of great women writers.”

The prize is open to any woman (over 18) around the world, writing in English. The novel can be of any genre but cannot have been published or self-published before. You must submit your entire completed novel to be eligible. The entry fee is £10 per manuscript.

For more information about the prize and to enter, click here.

Find out more about Virginia Woolf’s time in Richmond.

Writing prompt – figurehead

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Victorian naval figureheads suspended from the ceiling of Plymouth museum The Box_Photo by Judy DarleyIn the third of July’s Plymouth Prompts, I’m inviting you into The Box, a beautiful museum, social space and architectural marvel in Plymouth.

An astonishing display of 14 Victorian Naval figureheads hangs suspended in the entrance  and cafe.

What vessels did these carvings grace? Who created them, and what characteristics did they imbue the sculptures with? What naval adventures did the figureheads embark on? Might they have their own personalities, revealed when no one is looking, or shown only to a privileged few?

You can find details of these historic carvings here.

Plymouth Prompts: Island.

Plymouth Prompts: Survivor.

Plymouth Prompts: Bums.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Look out for next week’s Plymouth Prompt.

Writing prompt – survivor

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National Marine Aquarium_Friday the turtle_Photo by Judy Darley

In the second of July’s Plymouth Prompts, I want to introduce you to one of the characters we met at the National Marine Aquarium, Friday the Green Turtle.

Last week I shared a creative prompt inspired by Drake’s Island, which sits in the Plymouth Sound.

Friday shares the Atlantic Tank with an assortment of sharks, rays and other species and is doing his part to enthral visitors with his cheeky antics, which include stealing food from the immense sting rays and lemon sharks.

His name inevitably makes me think of Robinson Crusoe. In fact, Bournemouth Oceanarium, which Friday is on loan from, also had a female Green Sea Turtle called Crusoe until she died in 2016.

At Bournemouth Oceanarium, Friday made headlines in 2009 after retrieving a toddler’s dummy dropped into his tank – and sucking it just as a baby would. So it seems his cheeky behaviour is nothing new.

Plymouth Marine Aquarium has introduced an enrichment programme for Friday to keep him occupied. It’s like he’s that disruptive child in a classroom who’s just too smart for their own good (or the good of their teachers/marine biologists!).

However, his naughtiness is brilliant for the Aquarium’s PR, helping visitors to see marine animals as personality-rich individuals in need of our respect and care.

Can you turn this into a story about a marine creature’s misadventures, or a climate fiction tale about how we can positively impact our seas?

Write a tale inspired by this marine mischief-maker!

Plymouth Prompts: Island.

Plymouth Prompts: Figurehead.

Plymouth Prompts: Bums.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Look out for next week’s Plymouth Prompt.

 

Unlock your fairy tale toolkit

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Rainbow by Judy Darley

Are you coming to the Flash Fiction Festival 2023. The in-person version of the festival unfurls from 14th-16th July, welcoming fabulous flashers including Kathy Fish, Nancy Stohlman, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Carrie Etter and Tania Hershman.

The weekend takes place at Trinity College, Bristol, and is packed with inspiring workshops tackling every aspect of flash fiction.

From 8.45am to 9.45am on Sunday 16th July, I’m inviting writers to wake up with my ‘Unlock your fairy tale toolkit’ workshop where fairy tale motifs offer the chance to shine new light on modern day darkness. We’ll be examining the fairy tales that resonated with us when we were children, and still resonate now, looking at what gives fairy tales their magic (hint: it’s not fairies), and writing the first draft of our own flash fiction fairy tales.

I hope to see you there!

Writing prompts – Plymouth Prompts

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Drakes Island_Plymouth_Photo by Judy Darley

Easily reached by rail or sea, Plymouth sits on the south coast of Devon, and is aptly described as Britain’s Ocean City. It looks out to where the English Channel broadens into the open Atlantic, and onwards to North America. On fine summer days, you could feel you’re somewhere far more tropical than south west England.

We travelled via GWR trains, taking in the most glorious scenery south and west of Bristol), with wildlife sightings including a buzzard and a heron as well as numerous other wading birds. We stayed at Jewells Guest House on Citadel Road, very close to Hoe Park and the waterfront.

To celebrate this beautiful city, I’m going to devote July’s weekly writing prompts to highlights and curiosities glimpsed here.

The first is very much a highlight, whether you have a passion for marine life, boats, islands or history.

Drake’s Island sits in the Plymouth Sound just a short distance from the mainland, and is a haven for wildlife as well as brimming with military tales and more. I’ve always loved islands – the possibility of being cut off from civilisation is hugely appealing and rife with suspenseful possibilities (as Agatha Christie understood well). The island only got its first telephone in 1987!

In 2005 anti-nuclear protestors squatted here, It’s changed names (and personalities) several times since it first appeared in recorded history in 1135 as St Michael’s, and was fortified for 400 years.

How could you use some of this in a work of fiction? Might you introduce a few military ghosts, an eerie fog-laced Armada or a fizz of climatic peril?

Plymouth Prompts: Survivor.

Plymouth Prompts: Figurehead.

Plymouth Prompts: Bums.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

Enter Winchester Poetry Prize 2023

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Sunshine snail cr Judy Darley

Winchester Poetry Prize 2023 invites you to submit poetry “with a good emotional thwack.” The closing date for entries is 31st July 2023.

Entries cost £6 for first poem, £5 for subsequent poems.

A ‘Pay it Forward’ scheme introduced by 2020’s competition winner, Lewis Buxton, allows you to pay for an extra entry that will fund a submission by a poet who wouldn’t otherwise be able to enter the competition.

The judge is Zaffar Kunial, a prize-winning British poet. His debut collection, Us, was shortlisted for a number of prizes, including the T. S. Eliot Prize. England’s Green, his latest collection, has been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Ondaatje Prize.

Winchester Poetry Prizes

  • First Prize: £1,000
  • Second Prize: £500
  • Third Prize: £250

Winning and commended poems will be published in a competition anthology.

The longlist will be announced in mid September and we will announce the winners live at Winchester Poetry Festival on Sunday 15th October 2023.

The best poem by a poet living in Hampshire will receive a prize kindly donated by Warren & Son. 

Find full details here: www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org/prize.

Got an event, challenge, competition, creative opportunity or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) ICloud (dot) com.